Warlock
Short History & Introduction During the First and Second wars, the formerly shamanistic orcs were transformed into a warlike juggernaut of destruction by their demon-influenced shaman leader Ner'zhul and later, the orcish warlock Gul'dan - Master of the Inner Circle of the Shadow Council and Destroyer of Dreams. The Horde soon added warlocks in various forms to their armies, and orcish and ogre warlocks came to be feared within the ranks of the Alliance. Human Warlocks were Mages from the Kirin Tor that delved too deeply into the roots of demonic power and were removed from the organization. Consumed by a lust for dark knowledge, they tapped into chaotic magic from beyond the world. The Burning Legion fed them their powers, allowing them to channel destructive energies and call upon the powerful emissaries of their demon masters. Many of the human warlocks pledged their lives and services to the Lich King just prior to the invasion of his undead Scourge. In the Lich King's service many of these warlocks became skilled necromancers. In addition, the Lich King granted many of his undead servants limited warlock abilities as well. When the portal to the Twisting Nether was finally opened and the demons began pouring through, it seemed that the heyday of the warlocks was at hand. However, against impossible odds, the orcs, humans and night elves defeated the Legion at Mount Hyjal in distant Kalimdor. A short time following this battle, a night elf named Illidan cast a mighty spell intended to melt the polar icecap of Northrend. The spell was interrupted, but the Frozen Throne of the Lich King was significantly damaged. The Lich King gradually lost control over a good portion of his servants. These Forsaken, as they began to call themselves, found that, while still undead, they had had their spirits returned to their bodies regaining their free will. Consequently, many of the Forsaken embraced their demonic tendancies and became warlocks. Forsaken society is perhaps the only one in which the warlocks are accepted as legitimate magic users. Gnomes are also known as proficient warlocks, and they appear to have a more accepted role within their respective society than, for example, orcs or humans. In most societies, the warlocks now live on the fringe of civilization, tolerated but not trusted. Conventional spellcasters often see warlock magic as a vain attempt at gaining power. Although many that consort with demons fall to darkness, the Warlock class manages to bend demonic forces to its will without succumbing to complete corruption. These spellcasters can summon demons to serve them, and they also cast many painful spells that slowly eat at the life of enemies. Warlocks are usually physically weak compared to more physical classes, but they compensate for this deficiency with their potent array of spells and their demonic pets. Compared to other spellcasters, Warlocks are among the strongest, and often depend on the sacrifice of their own blood to fuel their mental powers. Warlock - From the Old English wærloga; "oath-breaker" or "deceiver". Overview thumb|right|An Orc Warlock is applying demon skin. At low levels, Warlocks rely primarily on pets and Damage over Time (DoT) spells to deal out pain to their enemies. They hold the power to lay various Curses on their enemies which have varying weakening or damaging effects, as well as debuff the enemy with a number of other spells. At higher levels, a significant percentage of Warlock PvE damage comes from chain-casting Shadow Bolt. Particularly in 40-person raids, the 16-debuff limit prevents full use of a Warlock's DoTs and debuffs (though in the Burning Crusade expansion, this debuff limit will be raised to 40), though Mages in particular make great use of Curse of Elements, which increases damage taken by fire and frost based attacks. As Warlocks advance in level, they gain some powerful Area of Effect (AoE) spells, which deal out damage to all enemies within a range, sometimes including the Warlock who casts the spell. These spells are channeled, which makes them almost useless for leveling or farming. In 40-person raids, however, these make up a vital part of the raid's damage. The Warlock can learn to summon magical mounts. All other clases, except Paladins, must purchase their own mounts. Races The following races can play a Warlock: * Alliance ** Gnomes ** Humans * Horde ** Blood Elves (Blood Elves are not playable until the release of the 'The Burning Crusade' expansion) ** Orcs ** Undead Weapons & Armor Warlocks can wear Cloth Armor only, and can initially use Daggers and Unarmed combat in battle. They can also use Wands for ranged combat, and equip off-hands to enhance various skills. They can train at a weapon master for to gain the ability to use Swords and Staves. More information regarding Warlock-specific armor can be found at Warlock Sets. Attributes The Warlock has no use for Strength or Agility. Because of Life Tap, Stamina is usually considered as more valuable than Intellect as you can convert hp to mana whenever you want. The most interesting stats will thus be (in falling order): # Stamina # +DMG (the +dmg is calculated more often on a warlock because of the numerous instant spells including Lifetap # Intellect See also attributes, Formulas:Health Regen and Formulas:Mana Regen for more information. Soul Shards A large number of the Warlock's skills and spells rely on the reagent known as Soul Shards. Soul Shards are obtained by using the Drain Soul or Shadowburn(Talent) spell as an enemy is dying. Abilities Find detailed information about the warlock's various abilities on the Warlock Spells page. Pets Warlocks can summon a variety of pets, each exhibiting different skill sets which are useful in different situations. *Imp (Level Obtained: 1) : The Imp's main role is a support pet, designed to do additional damage alongside the caster via its Firebolt attack. The Imp is very fragile and will die very quickly if attacked, but it requires no Soul Shard to summon, and is often used to farm new Soul Shards when you run out and cannot summon a different pet. Other Imp abilities include Phase Shift (allowing the Imp to shift out of phase and cannot be targetted by enemies), Blood Pact, a powerful stamina buff for everyone in your party, and Fire Shield, a Thorns-like damage shield which he will cast on you and your groupmates that enter combat. With the Improved Imp and Improved Firebolt talents, the Imp is the most damaging pet in the warlock's arsenal (with the notable exceptions of the Infernal and Doomguard); at least until he runs out of mana. At the moment however the second point in improved firebolt is broken due to a flaw in game mechanics. *Voidwalker (Level Obtained: 10, Undead, Orc, Gnome, Human) : This demon deals little damage, but has very good armor and good hit points. The Voidwalker's main ability, Torment is a taunt that causes enemies to lose interest in the warlock and instead attack the Voidwalker. There is also a PBAOE version of Torment called Suffering. This makes for an excellent soloing pet, and is also great for farming additional Soul Shards. Additional Voidwalker spells include Sacrifice, which kills your Voidwalker but creates a 30-second damage absorption shield for the warlock, and Consume Shadows which is an out of combat self-heal for the Voidwalker. *Succubus (Level Obtained: 20, Undead, Orc, Alliance) : The Succubus is replete with spells that deal damage and mesmerize the enemy in different ways. Her first ability, Lash of Pain, is a direct-damage, low-mana cast that deals shadow damage to her target. Other spells include Soothing Kiss, which will reduce threat (the reverse of the Voidwalker's Torment ability) and Seduction, which mesmerizes a target for 15 seconds (or until attacked). The Succubus also has a self-only Lesser Invisibility spell. Succubus deals the most damage of all the basic pets, without talent upgrades. : Quest: Hearts of the pure ( undead ) *Felhunter (Level Obtained: 30, Horde, Alliance) : The Felhunter is your anti-caster pet. Where the Succubus deals lots of melee damage, the Voidwalker is a great tank and the Imp deals lots of ranged damage, the Felhunter has high magic resist and has abilities to counterspell (Spell Lock), remove buffs from enemies and remove debuffs from friendlies (Devour Magic). The Warlock employing a meleeing Felhunter can also use Tainted Blood to reduce the Attack power of enemies when they land hits. *Infernal (Level Obtained: 50, from Grimoire of Inferno or Kroshius' Infernal Core) : While it deals better melee damage than the Succubus, has higher HP, fire immunity, and more AC than a Voidwalker; it needs to be enslaved (with the Enslave Demon spell) after the first five minutes. This demon can break loose unexpectedly, causing it to turn on its former master. It can be enslaved again (at the cost of one Soul Shard per attempt), but Enslave is subject to diminishing returns -- the duration decreases with each successive casting on the same demon. The Infernal deals strictly in melee damage, combined with an immolation effect that hurts all enemies nearby. It also requires an Infernal Stone to summon. *Doomguard (Level Obtained: 60, from Curse of Doom or Ritual of Doom) : The Doomguard is the most powerful Warlock pet. It has the highest HP and AC, as well as having Rain of Fire, Dispel, Cripple and Warstomp. A properly used Doomguard can take out entire camps of enemies at a time before perishing. However, like the Infernal, it requires Enslave Demon to be cast on it to stay within the Warlock's control, but unlike the Infernal, it MUST be enslaved right away, or it will start attacking you or your party/raid. It can be re-enslaved after but the Enslave's duration diminishes after each casting. Curse of Doom has about a 10% chance of summoning a Doomguard if it deals the killing damage. Ritual of Doom will summon a Doomguard 100% of the time, but requires the assistance of your party, and will kill one member of your group. That one party member could be you. Thus unleashing an angry Doomguard on your group mates with no one to enslave it unless another Warlock is in your group. Ritual of Doom requires a Demonic Figurine reagent. * Also the felguard is going to be added in the Burning Crusade expansion at the top of the new demonology talent tree. It will use the standard single soul shard for summon. See Burning Crusade site. Mounts *Felsteed (Level Obtained: 40, from Strahad Farsan in Ratchet) : The Felsteed is the 'free mount' that Warlocks receive at level 40. Other than Paladins, all other classes must pay for a mount and for training to ride it (these prices can be lowered by being Honored with the mount's city and by obtaining the Sergeant rank). This is a great help since Warlocks must purchase spells for their summoned pets as well. *Dreadsteed (Level Obtained: 60, from Mor'zul Bloodbringer in Burning Steppes near the Altar of Storms) : The Dreadsteed is the Warlock Epic level 60 mount. This pet is obtained though a long quest line. It is not free, but it is still available to Warlocks at a significant discount compared to other classes ( , compared to ~ for everyone else). This cost can be further reduced by another if you have another warlock who already has the materials. This cost however does not take into account the three materials collection quests you are tasked with which can be very costly, particuarly if your Warlock does not posses any of the trade skills required to do them. Direct Damage Spells The Warlock's direct damage spells are either Shadow or Fire based. While a Warlock's direct damage does not compare to the Mage, when coupled with their DoTs and a pet they can achieve a strong, steady DPS. *Shadow Bolt *Searing Pain *Soul Fire *Death Coil *Rain of Fire *Hellfire *Conflagrate (talent) *Shadowburn (talent) [[Curse|'Curses' »]] The Warlock has available variety of curses, but only one can be cast upon an enemy at a given time. This creates the need for determining an appropriate Curse in a given situation. Curses include strength-draining, damage-over-time, resistance depletion, and others. *Curse of Weakness *Curse of Agony *Curse of Recklessness *Curse of Tongues *Curse of the Elements *Curse of Shadow *Curse of Doom *Curse of Exhaustion (Talent) Conjured Items Another powerful ability of the Warlock is to create varying Stones from Soul Shards. Certain stones are wielded in the off-hand, and enhance damage, or remove negative spell effects. All conjured items disappear 15 minutes after logging off. *Create Healthstone - Creates a stone that will heal damage. It comes in various strengths and is tradable. It is very similar to a health potion, but on a separate timer. *Create Soulstone - Creates a stone that allows you to insure someone's soul for 30 minutes. That person can self resurrect if they died while the soulstone was active. *Create Firestone - Creates a non-tradable off-hand item which adds Fire damage to your wielded weapon. *Create Spellstone - Creates a non-tradable stone that when equipped and used, will absorb magical damage and remove all magic effects -- good and bad. While equipped, it will increase the warlock's spell crit chance. Healing While a Warlock is by no means a healer, they do have some limited ability to heal themselves, their pet and others while in combat and even resurrect. To heal themselves there are Drain Life, Siphon Life (Affliction talent) and Death Coil which, conveniently, also damage the target. Demonic Sacrifice (Demonology talent) also restores health by increasing the warlock's health regeneration at the cost of a summoned Voidwalker. To heal others (or himself), a Warlock can create a Healthstone and hand it to another member of their party. These can be improved through talents. To heal their pet they have Health Funnel. This can be improved through talents, although not worth the points. To resurrect a target a Warlock may use a Soulstone on the target before it dies (30 minutes Buff duration and Cooldown), allowing it to resurrect on death. Miscellany The Warlock has other valuable spells at their disposal: *Fear - sends an enemy fleeing for a period of time. *Howl of Terror - sends enemies around you fleeing in terror for a period of time. *Banish - freezes a demon or elemental - preventing them from attacking, though they are also immune to all damage while banished. Can also be used in PvP against enemy demons. *Ritual of Summoning - a ritual requiring 2 other party members which allows you to summon another party member to your location. *Eye of Kilrogg - a fragile but speedy eye that allows you to scout out dangerous areas from a safe distance. *Unending Breath - allows a target to breathe underwater *Detect Greater Invisibility - allows a target to see invisible units, has three "ranks" lesser/normal/greater. *Sense Demons - shows demons on the minimap. Talents *Affliction - Affliction talents are largely based on increasing the effectivenss of DoTs, Drains, and Curses. Affliction's strengths are its ability to remain mobile in PvP, allow the Warlock to heal himself, and is very mana efficient, great for farming. Key talents include Shadow Mastery, Siphon Life, Fel Concentration, and Improved Corruption. *Demonology - Demonology talents are largely based improving the effectiveness of your pets, conjure spells, and bestowing other passive bonuses. Demonology's strengths is its versatility and survivability. A Demonology Warlock doesn't deal a lot of damage but is a tough foe to kill. Key talents include Soul Link, Master Demonologist, Demonic Sacrifice and Demonic Embrace. *Destruction - Destruction talents are largely based on increasing the effect of Direct Damage spells, making them cast faster, crit more often, and ultimately deal more Burst Damage. Destruction's strength is its ability to quickly kill a single foe. Key talents include Conflagrate, Ruin, Shadowburn, and Bane. Talent builders can be found at Official Blizzard site, Panda Hideout, WoW Vault, ThottBot, Merciless Talent Calculator. See the Warlock talents page for detailed information and talent trees. End-Game Expectations DPS, Soulstones, Pet Tanking...is there anything that Warlocks can't do? You are a jack of all trades, but mostly DPS is your specialty. Make good use of your Soul Shards, be prepared to Summon late comers, and give out some of that soul candy you call Healthstones. Be prepared to banish a lot of elementals, since you're the only form of Crowd Control in Molten Core. Also, don't forget to Soulstone the MT or Healers, it may make the difference in whether you live or wipe. When doing 40-man high level instances, the Warlocks normally assign the responsability of curses among each other. Effective use of applying those curses are usually expected. As a warlock, it's your responsability to know what curse to use unless the raid leader requests otherwise. Macros There are a couple of nifty macros tailored for Warlocks. Addons Many warlock addons used to revolve around sorting shards. However, as of patch 1.9 this functionality was integrated into soul shard bags. * Healthstone Trader is designed to automate the process of handing out healthstones by warlocks, and can be initiated by the user or a whisper. This can be very useful in raids where large amounts of healthstones may need to be handed out. Its various features can be trigged by either a hotkey or through a whisper. You can get it here * RaidSummon will queue group/raidmembers that request to be summoned (by whispering you a specific keyword) and notify the warlock with an audio signal and a text message. Casting "Ritual of Summoning" will then summon the first player in the queue and - if the ritual succeeded (RaidSummon detects failures) - remove him from the list. Casting again will summon the next player and so on. Additionally, using the "Ritual of Summoning" action while targeting a raid/group-member will perform a normal ritual of summoning on him - preferring the target over already queued raid/group-members. You can get it here * Necrosis LdC is based on Necrosis 1 by infernal. It is described by its author as "a mod to help Warlocks managing their stones, shards and demon summoning. No more, but no less..." It is a very useful addon and perhaps the most widely used of the Warlock specific addons. Get it here. * Lockbox is an intelligent mod to automate a large portion of PvE grinding. Its primary purpose is to simplify grinding while you are leveling your warlock up to end-game content. It can cast appropriate curses, DoTs and drains, will manage your soulstones (keeping you topped off to a set number and only casting Drain Soul when you will get a stone from the target), recalls runners with Curse of Recklessness, ensures Armor/Skin is up, and sends in your pet. Get it here. See Also * Starting a Warlock -- Some advice when starting out. * Warlock Spells -- Spells available to the Warlock. * Warlock Category -- Further information on the Warlock class, including spells. * Warlock patch history -- Changes to the Warlock class * EU WoW forums * US WoW forums ---- Category:Classes Category:Warlocks Category:Gnomes Category:Humans Category:Orcs Category:Forsaken Category:Horde classes Category:Alliance classes